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In today’s tough times, most are hard-pressed in making ends meet even if they’re currently employed with regular source of income. For some, a job is no longer an option and would rather venture into other money making ideas that can potentially replace their job income.

This article outlines the top 5 online money making ideas a lot of creative people use to earn extra (or full time) income that makes end meet or to actually put food on the table.

The internet has not only changed how we communicate and research for information but offered a lot of income opportunities to ones who are willing to grab it.

Freelancing – One of the most common ways to make money aside from having a traditional job is to offer your services as a freelancer. If you’re an artist, you can position yourself as an artist for hire. Building an online portfolio is extremely pivotal to being an artist for hire. An illustrator needs to be able to show potential clients what they can offer them if they take them on as a client. Independent authors and web publishers are constantly looking for people to design book covers, websites, and logos for them. This is a great income source for someone who enjoys doing graphic design. My friend, does this quite successfully and by having his own website that attract organic traffic, he sets himself up above the many other freelance graphic artists around.Another popular way of making money as a freelancer is to become a freelance writer or editor. Self-publishing books has exploded in recent years. There are a lot of independent authors looking for editors who would like to have their work edited for a more affordable price than the norm in the publishing world. You can editing jobs or be a ghost writer to help the author craft the whole book if you know what you’re doing.
On the lower end of this scale, you can accept article writing gigs and help online publishers like niche website owners and bloggers continuously feed their sites with fresh quality content. The key here is quality content, to build ongoing relationships with your clients and build your reputation.

Freelance writing is a great money making idea because you can completely control how much work you take on. if you’re just getting started, websites like Odesk.com and Elance.com are great places to land your initial gigs. Pricing your service competitively will help you attract clients and build your reputation on these freelance job boards but if you’re considering to go this route on a long term basis, I suggest that you build your own website to build your reputation, attract more clients, and turn this into a real business that can potentially replace your day job.

There are a lot of services that you can offer as an online freelancer. If you’re a developer or a programmer, you’ll definitely make more money online by offering software development services.

Become An Online Retailer – Ever bought something off Amazon and eBay? Most of these sellers are people just like you and me operating their own bookstores, gadget shops or computer retail stores off their homes. There are two ways you can start selling stuff as an online retailer.One is by buying stocks and keeping inventories to ship yourself or to become a dropshipper where you partner with a dropshipping supplier that will ship your inventories to your buyers from their warehouses. Option two takes a lot of work but it can be tricky when it comes to pricing, delivery and item quality as you don’t really get to see (or touch) your products before they are shipped to your customers.
The best way to get started with this money making idea is to start selling junk you can find inside your home (ladies, I’m not referring to your husbands!). The average person has a lot of things in their home that they never use. Items like old jewelry, unwatched DVDs and unused craft items are perfect. You can also buy things that are on bargain bins and sell them online for regular prices or get stuff from your local thrift stores or library sales.

The key is on being able to check the current prices of the items you’re looking to resell before you buy them to make sure you’re actually going to make a profit. This is where your smart phone will come handy, all you have to do is download price scanning/comparison apps like FOB Scan.

Sell Fiverr Gigs – Yes, Fiverr gigs! It may not seem like much but Fiverr gigs are no longer limited to $5 per pop. You can offer your initial service or product on the standard $5 pricing but you can offer upgrades from $20 to $50 per pop. Some of the gigs you can offer are voice overs, small graphic jobs, short videos, SEO pushes, and other small and fast jobs that you can do for a few minutes of your time.
Open Up A YouTube Channel – As mentioned in my previous article, YouTube users watch over 4 billion hours of video a month so there are always people willing to watch your videos. A person who plans to make money off of YouTube needs to decide on a niche or what they want to talk about in their videos. Do they want to teach a tutorial or give a commentary? If someone owns all of their material legally, than they’re eligible for the partner program.
With original ideas and constant promotions, an internet entrepreneur can set up shop on YouTube in a matter of minutes. Although it might take a lot of work, the payment after a while can be pretty big but just like any other content marketing businesses, 10 YouTube videos won’t make you a happy camper. It’s always a numbers game, think of it as having your own TV show where you’re the host, producer and channel owner. You can read this article for more on how to make money with YouTube.

Create And Sell Your Own Products – A lot of online marketers found that they can make money faster with creating their own products than creating blogs or niche websites. This of course if beyond the realities of most beginning online marketers but if you have some time to spare, product creation isn’t really that difficult as you may think. Creating an infoproduct (eBook or membership site) on a subject that you know and love will reward you hundred times over. Come to think of it, if you have a product of your own, a lot of other affiliate marketers are willing to sell your products on their websites and email lists for a commission helping you reach a very wide audience that’s impossible for you to reach on your own.
There are a whole lot more money making ideas people use to make money online but these by far are the top ideas that you can put to work for you right away, specially the top 3. Building and publishing your own blog or website is the best way to build a business system that will build an awesome source of passive income in the near future but the top 3 ideas listed above will help you make money right away.

Offering freelance services on established freelance job boards helps you piggy back on their traffic being that they’re the “go to” places for people who are looking to outsource stuff they don’t like to do themselves.

Retailing on Amazon or eBay can also attract sales faster than if you’re going to build your own online store as they already have the traffic of shoppers whose mindset is to scout for products they want to buy online. It’s free to list products on Amazon and you only get charged when you actually sell something while eBay will charge you a few dime when you list a product for sale.

The growth of the internet and social media has made it very easy for fake news stories to proliferate. Whereas some sites are intentional in writing false, but humorous stories, there are some sites that work hard to pass themselves as real and others only see to peddle salacious false tales just to drive traffic and enjoy ad revenue to the sites.

Social media on the other hand makes it very easy for people to spread the misinformation which at the end of the day brings about lots of confusion. It is important to try and verify how true a story is before sharing. Below are a few pointers that should raise an eyebrow that the story you are about to share is fake to save you the embarrassment when the truth comes out.

1. Missing links, references, citations and author

One of the most obvious red flag when it comes to fake news is missing links and references to help you validate the information shared. Popular sites may miss references and citations, but most other sites will have them. You may also find that the name of the author is the story is missing or if it exists, you can’t find anything credible about the author when you do a search on them.

2. The news source has a reputation of shadiness

Where you get news stories should guide you on whether they are true or likely to be fake. The reputation the source of news has can say a lot about its credibility. If a source is known to constantly spread fake news, then it is highly likely that the interesting story you are about to share is fake. Most news stories from such sites or sources will seem just as incredulous when you take a look at them.

3. No other site or news source carries a similar story

If you can’t seem to find anything similar from reputable new sites and websites even though the story seems to be hot news, then something is definitely wrong. Failure in finding anything similar should tell you that the author never did any research or is simply sharing their personal opinion on a given topic and not factual news.

4. Grammatical and spelling worries

Reputable news sources take their time to go through the texts and to actually edit as appropriate before posting them. They actually have proofreaders whose work is to correct all grammatical and spelling errors present. An author who is hastily posting information will not have the time to go through the text over and over to make such corrections. If you keep noticing errors as you go through the text, you are most probably dealing with a fake story.

5. Mismatch between headline and article content

The headline persuades you to believe before you even read and also tells you what the story is about. Fabricated headlines are there to attract attention, but it is best to read through the content before believing. Most fake stories will have mismatching details between headline and the content you actually get.

When you are first starting out in internet marketing one of the hardest things to do can be deciding which niche market you are going to target.

I know when I was first starting out I went from having no idea what area I would be targeting to being bombarded by so many different niche markets my head was spinning at the prospect of picking just one or two.

With that in mind I am going to look at some of the various kinds of niche markets available to you as well as a few other things you will need to consider, with the intention of casting a little light on the subject and hopefully as a result make the whole process of choosing a niche market that bit easier for you.

1. Try traditional niche markets

The traditional niche markets break down into three main categories

• Health and Fitness

• Wealth Creation

• Lifestyle

Each of these markets has existed for far longer than the internet has and will always be in demand. In fact, these markets have existed since before the beginning of marketing itself.

For example, people are always looking to improve their health, this could be health in general or dealing with a health condition that they have to live with such as diabetes, high blood pressure, back pain, asthma or IBS to name but a few.

Maybe you are more interested in the fitness side of things, again the scope for this market is huge and very much in demand. People are always looking for ways to work out at home or shorten their time at the gym with different ways to get the maximum results in the shortest amount of time. A lot of these gym goers are looking at ways to put on weight or build muscle.

Which brings me nicely onto what is probably the biggest area under the health and fitness banner, this is weight loss. The global weight loss market is estimated to be worth £220 million with an estimated 29 million Brits attempting to lose weight last year alone and with obesity on the rise this market is only going to get bigger. With that in mind there’s always a marketplace out there that will be hungry for information in this area.

In the same way, people are always looking to make more money, maybe they have retired and want something to fill their time and top up their pension, or they could be looking for something to do as a hobby that can generate a little extra cash to supplement their wages. It could be, they have dreams of quitting the drudgery of the 9 to 5 and starting out on their own. As with health and fitness, wealth creation is a huge marketplace with numerous possibilities.

Similarly, lifestyle is an area that people want to improve constantly, this again covers a wide range of subjects, quitting smoking or drinking could also be covered by the health and fitness banner but tends to come under lifestyle as does improving sleep and stress management. You could also look at relaxation techniques and meditation as well as the very popular relationship niche. So as you can see a vast number of people will always be looking for solutions within this market.

In conclusion, the markets I’ve mentioned are a fantastic place to start if you’re thinking of going into internet marketing, or even if you’re already up and running and you want to explore a new niche then these are huge markets for you to tap into.

2. Solve peoples problems

Every single person who is in internet marketing brings a wealth of knowledge with them, and if you think that this is not true for you, then you are wrong. We all have things that we are passionate about, or are knowledgeable in, it could be a hobby that you have been doing for years or maybe you do a job in which you have gained knowledge that could be passed on to the less initiated – insider information, tricks of the trade etc. You can use what you know or love to help solve other peoples problems. Even if you don’t have all the answers, with access to the internet you have all the experts in your chosen topic at your finger tips – just Google it! And if you’re solving a problem, you’re helping someone. If you’re helping someone, then you can get paid for your time and effort.

Every single day people all over the world are looking for answers to problems they may have, in every single subject under the sun. Don’t believe me? try googling ‘how to get my bread to rise’ and you get over 5.6 million results, or try ‘How to improve my golf swing’ and over 1.25 million results are returned, or try something more obscure like ‘How to stop my dog barking’ and you get over 770,000 results. What I’m trying to say here is that regardless of what you are knowledgeable about there is someone out there looking for answers to problems in that particular area.

If you can provide a solution to the people who are looking for answers, in a way that they can easily access, then you can get paid for doing it.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to produce an e-book and with websites such as Amazon kindle direct publishing; https://kdp.amazon.com it’s now easier than ever to get your e-book out into the market place. If you add an audio or video version as well, then you will greatly improve your widespread appeal.

Do your research right and you can easily find the most common problems in your chosen niche. A very good way of finding what problems people need solving is to go direct to the market itself. One of the best places to look can be online forums dedicated to your chosen subject, you will find numerous people here looking for answers to an abundance of problems. Places like Yahoo Answers are also a great way of finding out what problems people are facing. If you want to you can always go and survey people in your chosen niche.

This is not only a great way to find out what problems people need solving, it’s also very valuable to you because the people are basically telling you what product they need. All you have to do is give it to them.

3. Do your research

Research within your chosen niche is vital. It’s important because it tells you what the market is thinking and more importantly what it wants. It also tells you if the demand is big enough to be worth your time and effort creating products that that particular market is asking for.

By going direct to the market you can discover what problems they face, what solutions they’ve tried, what has worked and what hasn’t worked, you’ll get a better insight into what people want and be better placed to provide a solution in a targeted way.

If you already have a list, that’s great, send them a brief email questionnaire, ask them what they want to learn about, what problems they have (short term and long term), what kind of information they need.

Introduction

Diversification today most executives and boards realize how difficult it is to add value to businesses that aren’t connected to each other in some way. Yet too many executives still believe that diversifying into unrelated industries reduces risks for investors or that diversified businesses can better allocate capital across businesses than the market does-without regard to the skills needed to achieve these goals. Because few have such skills, diversification instead often caps the upside potential for shareholders but doesn’t limit the downside risk. As managers contemplate moves to diversify, they would do well to remember that in practice, the best-performing conglomerates in the United States and in other developed markets do well not because they’re diversified but because they’re the best owners, even of businesses outside their core industries.

Meaning

Diversification is a form of corporate strategy whereby a company seeks to increase profitability through greater sales volume obtained from new products and/ or new markets. Diversification can occur either at the business unit level or at the corporate level. At the business unit level, it is most likely to expand into a new segment of an industry that the business is already in. At the corporate level, it is generally very interesting entering a promising business outside of the scope of the existing business unit.

Arguments

Like any other structure, this structure has also lot to offer which needs to be analyzed-

A. LIMITED UPSIDE, UNLIMITED DOWNSIDE:

The argument that diversification benefits the shareholders by reducing volatility was never compelling. At an aggregate level, conglomerates have underperformed more focused companies both in the real economy (growth and returns on capital) and in the stock market. Even adjusted for size differences, focused companies grew faster.

From the above graph, it can be viewed that a higher % of conglomerates tend to provide returns in the range of 8% to 18% as compared to focused companies. On the contrary, there are much lesser % of conglomerate companies that offer negative returns and also high growth rate returns.

The answer to these patterns is that in conglomerates there are businesses that offer high returns and others which offer lower returns. Thus the returns are averaged out. But in the case of focused companies, those which are performing companies perform either tend to outperform or underperform as compared to its peers. This is because of the fact that the capital that is invested in these companies is focused and thus there is little leeway available for them to maneuver as compared to the conglomerates which tend to readjust their capital as per the situation.

B. PREREQUISITES FOR CREATING VALUE:

What matters in a diversification strategy is whether managers have the skills to add value to businesses in unrelated industries-by allocating capital to competing investments, managing their portfolios, or cutting costs.

I. Disciplined (and sometimes contrarian) investors: High-performing conglomerates continually rebalance their portfolios by purchasing companies they believe are undervalued by the market-and whose performance they can improve.
ii. Aggressive capital managers: All cash that exceeds what’s needed for operating requirements is transferred to the parent company, which decides how to allocate it across current and new business or investment opportunities, based on their potential for growth and returns on invested capital are rationalized from a capital standpoint: excess capital is sent where it is most productive, and all investments pay for the capital they use.
ii. Rigorous ‘lean’ corporate centers: High-performing conglomerates operate much as better private equity firms do with a lean corporate center that restricts its involvement in the management of business units to selecting leaders, allocating capital, setting strategy, setting performance targets, and monitoring performance.

C. WHY DIVERSIFY WHEN OTHER TECHNIQUES ARE AVAILABLE:

Strategists argue that there are generally three strategies that a company can use for achieving success – category growth, market share gains (i.e. world class operators & Portfolio Shaper), or M&A.

1. New core may make sense for three reasons.-

I. The first has to do with profits. When the profitability of a business is in secular decline, a new core makes sense.
ii. The second reason is inherently inferior economics. This becomes more apparent when a new competitor enters with a different cost structure.
iii. The third reason for moving into a new core is an unsustainable growth formula. The market may be reaching saturation or competitors may have started to replicate a once unique source of differentiation.

2. Pros & Cons of Diversification:

Pros:-
-Economies of scale and scope
-Operational synergies can be realized.
-Spreading the firm’s unutilized organizational resources to other areas can create value.
-Leveraging skills across businesses can create value.

Transaction costs
-Coordination among independent firms may involve higher transaction costs.
-Internal capital market
-Cash from some businesses can be used to make profitable investments.
-External finance may be more costly due to transaction costs, monitoring costs, etc.
-Diversifying shareholders’ portfolios
-Individual shareholders may benefit from investing in a diversified portfolio.
-Identifying undervalued firms
-Shareholders may benefit from diversification if its managers are able to identify firms that are undervalued by the stock market.

Cons:-
-Combining two businesses in a single firm is likely to result in substantial influence costs.
-Resource allocation can be influenced by lobbying.
-Costly control systems may be needed that reward manager based on division profits and discipline managers by tying their careers to business unit objectives.

Internal capital markets may not work well in practice.
-Shareholders can diversify their own personal portfolios. Corporate managers are not really needed to do this.
-Identifying undervalued firms may not be as easy as it sounds.

Two other themes became associated with diversification – synergy and core competencies. Synergy dealt with the fit between the existing and new businesses. By moving into a new business, could costs be cut or revenues increased? Core competence referred to the bundle of skills and expertise which an organization had developed over time. Diversification seemed to make a lot of sense when the core competencies could be leveraged and extended to manage the new business.

Freight services are very important and load boards work great at connecting shippers with carriers. But the relationship between carrier and shippers ought to be good for the process to work out smoothly and be a win-win kind of a process. Fortunately, there are so many ways that can help improve the relationship between these two important people in the business. With stronger relationships, a reliable carrier network is maintained. By giving attention to carrier concerns, it is possible to build collaborative partnerships that are long lasting.

As a shipper, there are a few things that you can do to maintain a good relationship with your carrier.

1. Work for the good of everyone involved. This can be done by working with the carrier in determining which freights and lanes work the best. By working in conjunction with the carrier, then it is possible for profitability to be added to the network. It solidifies the relationship.

2. Honor commitment to the carriers. It is only when you honor your commitments to the carrier they will be able to honor theirs to you. Considering that carrier will usually base service price on data provided, then it is of importance that only accurate data should be provided. You should also ensure that you ship in tonnages and lanes that you say you will.

3. Be generous. This is in terms of the sharing opportunities that arise. When you bring new opportunities first to your carrier partner, then everybody will end up benefiting from an equitable agreement.

4. Start off with a plan. One of the best ways of avoiding a rocky start that could ruin an otherwise good relationship is to make sure that you start every new partnership with a plan. Allow a considerable amount of time for the carrier to get their system up and even train to take on new lanes and freights.

5. Avail all relevant data. The data that you provide during bidding process will largely determine how prepares the carrier is with regards to freight characteristics and location or even seasonal changes in terms of volume. It is therefore very important that you provide freight characteristic percentages and also monthly volume in addition to tonnage data and lane data that you give.

6. Keep communication lines open. Reviewing performance metrics, options and new services are always a good way of strengthening relationships. As a shipper consider holding regular meetings with carriers to discuss what matters most to the business. Using such meetings, you can come up with strategies to reduce costs and improve the business. Working together and communicating on a regular basis only solidifies the shipper-carrier relationship.

7. Embrace technology. In the same manner you expect real-time data on your shipments from your carriers you should make it equally easy for the carriers to transfer the data that you need. Choose programming options that offer them an accurate and smooth system of transferring the data that you need. There are so many technological tools that you can choose to make improvements to the business and relationship.

Nowadays, liquid cash is an essential thing. It does not really matter if you are the single heir to a very large estate. Getting it encashed would take you a long time after the descendant has deceased and after all the formal processing has been done. The best solution to this problem is the inheritance advance concept through which the heir to the estate gets the cash right way without any delay. Through this process, the heir gets the advance amount from the distributed amount without having to wait for a long period of time.

An inheritance advance policy gives the heir an option to choose whether he wants the entire amount or wants them in parts in a matter of just three days. The best thing about this feature is that you don’t have to worry about any hidden cost or additional charges for availing this facility. Since this is not any type of a loan there are no approvals required and the heir does not have to worry about repayments. Only the probate or the processing fees have to be paid, which depends on the size of the state and also the amount of money being claimed at once.

The Process of Inheritance

The possession of the deceased first goes to the probate court process. If the heir wants to claim the possession, referred to as estate, then he can avail the inheritance cash advance policy. The concept behind this policy is very simple. Once the state is ready to be distributed, the investor’s amount is cleared off from that amount. The remaining share of the heir, if any, is also cleared off during that point of time. The personal representative of the heir would take care of filling of tax returns and payment of bills which depends entirely on the state government once the probate process of the court is closed.

Eligibility for Inheritance Cash advance

The inheritance cash advance feature does not affect the share of the other heir if any involved in the distribution of the estate. The transaction is made strictly between the investor and the concerned heir. The heir just requires proper verification and paperwork to get his share at the earliest.

Reports have shown that the average time taken to get complete the probate process is 17 months. Thus, this facility proves to be beneficial for the people who wish to get money from their estates at the earliest for bill payments or for an immediate emergency.

Over the past few years, SEO has evolved faster than the previous decade. And this has made it harder for users to keep up with most recent updates. The launch of Penguin and Panda changed the way things worked in the past. In short, the way Google used to rank website has changed a lot. But if you want to reach your objectives, make sure you avoid some common SEO mistakes.

1. Avoiding RELEVANT CONTENT

In the start, Google said that it would rank websites that have the most relevant content on its first page. This statement is still valid. What has happened is that the search engine has become a lot better at achieving the objectives. In other words, now, Google is in better position to know what is relevant and what is not.

So, what you need to do is offer content that is relevant and avoid content is not relevant to your niche. Of course, the content should be informative and unique.

2. Following Tricks

People have been using many illegal ways of cheating the search engine algorithms for traffic, exposure and backlinks. Some of these tactics can still give you a temporary edge, but they are bad for your blog or website for the long-term.

So, you should avoid using low-quality, duplicate content, keyword stuffing, questionable redirects or cloaking for traffic. It may be tempting to go for these short-cuts, but they will just hurt your ranking, and may even get you banned for good.

3. Overloading your site

It has been a common perception that photos, videos and other graphics make a website more appealing for the viewers. To some extent, this perception is true; however, there should not be too much of it or your website will take ages to load. Your viewers don’t have all day to wait for your site to load. If your blog takes longer to load than other websites, the viewers will just click away. You will not only lose viewers, you will also lose ranking against other websites.

4. Making navigation difficult

Navigation is one of the most important factors for any website. It’s important for both viewers and search engines. Ideally, your viewers should be able to get the desired information from your website in one or two clicks. This may not be an easy task for you. So, what you can do is put important content on the main page of your site. This the users will be able to get what they want more easily.

5. Misunderstanding THE BACKLINK PROCESS

You may not want to be obsessed with obtaining a lot of backlinks. Although you don’t have to have backlinks from authority websites to establish your credibility, it helps a lot. However, what you need to do is try to get backclinks in a nature fashion. But it’s not a good idea to buy backlinks. This is one of the worst mistakes that you can make.

Quality content is the key to SEO success. Content doesn’t just mean your text contents. Images must be an integral part of your content strategy. At times, single images can be far more effective than your 1000 word blog post. It also helps you improve blog post quality and performance.

Images, Infographics, Videos and all other multimedia contents on your web page will help you in increasing the user engagement on your site and makes the visitors stay on your site for longer duration which helps in reducing the bounce rate.

Not just adding images to your contents, you should also optimize those images for better SEO performance. Optimization of images must be the one important aspect of your on-page SEO process.

If you are using images in your content, there are many aspects to be considered related to SEO.

Relevancy

Using images doesn’t mean that you should fill up your content with loads of pictures. You should use it only when it is required and also you should use images that are more relevant to your content.

Placement of your images is an another important aspect. It should be placed at a relevant location in your content according to your text content.

Use original images

Originality always helps in improving your user experience and your authority. Usage of original images will be helpful in improving your SEO performance. You can create original images with a graphic designer or you can take your own photographs with a quality camera. It is the reason top White hat SEO companies employ talented graphic designers for creating quality images.

If you are not able to employ an in-house graphic designer or if you are running out of time, you can always use high quality images from the web. But the important factor to be considered is it should be copyright free.

There are many tools available for getting copyright free images without any cost. The most popular ones are Unsplash, Flicker, Freeimages.

Image Size

Images are the main source for damping your site’s speed. And site speed is a crucial factor in your SEO performance. So, you should be extra cautious in using images without compromising your page speed.

It should not also affect your image quality, you should have a correct balance between. You can achieve this by reducing the file size by compression. You can use tools like Photoshop for compression.

File name

Search engine crawlers are visually impaired, it can even interrupt a 5000 word text content, but it cannot interrupt a single image and what the image is about. It is the reason using a keyword rich file names for your images is an important aspect in image optimization.

Google bots and other search engine crawlers can read your image’s file name and if it is named with your target keyword, it gives a signal to search engines about the image topic and thus helps your SEO performance.

For example, if your image is related to selling sports shoes, rather than using the file name as “IMG_89868″ you can use it as “Black_Tennis_Shoes”.

Alt text

Similar to the file name, search engines can read Alt text of the images. Alt text is known as “Aleternative Text”, is an HTML attribute used to describe the content of images.

You should use Alt text which is relevant to your images and it should be clear and descriptive. You can use your target keywords in the Alt text but be cautious about Keyword stuffing.

If you are not focusing on Image optimization, you are missing a huge opportunity in improving your SEO performance. You can use above mentioned best practices in your on-page optimization process.

American youth currently face challenging realities along their way to adulthood. With parents working longer hours and the absence of grandparents and other community adults who used to make up support systems, the intergenerational fabric of community has been frayed. Youth development strategies aim to reweave community fabric in a new way – one that takes the supports and opportunities young people should have, and re-institutes them in the context of young people’s realities today. While many of these realities are harsh ones, we know that young people themselves want to be involved in their communities. The importance of building positive youth/adult partnerships in this process cannot be stressed enough.

The mobilization effort is based on influencing three critical elements: information, attitudes, involvement. The transformation of each of these areas, both in the public and private domains, is a necessary condition for change. For example, in the area of information, the country is currently focused on collecting primarily negative youth information, e.g., teenage births, dropouts, and juvenile arrest rate. Inspiring a 180 degree shift, we need to collect information such as: average number of hours youth participate in after-school activities, computer to youth ratio in non-school hours, and the percentage of youth who hold part-time jobs. The three elements are intertwined, for how information is gathered and communicated impacts attitudes as well as how and if people choose to become involved.

Only through broad community commitment, strong public will, and diverse partnerships can youth development take root, go to scale, and be sustained over time. Ultimately, the mobilization must be supported by partnerships among all of the systems in a community that affect young people (i.e., education, corporations, health care, juvenile justice, religious groups, and recreation). To build these relationships and establish youth development infrastructures to improve developmental paths of adolescents will take at least 10 years.

Localities currently spending their resources on efforts to “fix youth” will need to pool, redirect, and increase their financial commitment to youth development. These additional dollars will ensure all youth equal access to supports and opportunities, especially youth living in economically distressed areas.

Our information on the services young people need, and use, is still hit or miss. Communities do not know what they have or what they need. They usually have no way to tell how well services are being used and what services need to be improved.

Good information is important for youth services for exactly the same reasons it is important for everything else. Accurate, accessible standardized information lets people find the services they need and use them effectively. It lets communities manage, evaluate and improve their services and determine the need for changing them, eliminating them, or developing new ones.

Many national efforts to measure outcomes presently use deficit-driven indicators to assess young people’s condition in society, such as teen pregnancy rates, juvenile crime numbers, and percentages of high school dropouts. Although these measures are important, they do not tell the whole story about young people’s experiences. Measures that reflect positive conditions and experiences of young people are also important.

The accelerated trend of the past decade toward empowering our nation’s young people to succeed has fostered a new awareness and commitment to this most valuable resource. Some basic questions are:

- How much do we currently spend?

- How much should we spend?

Some progress has been made through new initiatives in education finance reform and services integration, providing more effective delivery of social, health and educational services for children and youth from the classroom up to the government. This document establishes an initial framework and formula for assessing the financial resources and mechanisms necessary to move American society closer to this ideal. The following were found to be potential root causes of these trends in spending:

- Devaluation of adolescents.

- Lack of consensus on youth development.

- Lack of adequate and protected funding. Funds are not protected and dedicated in the manner necessary to sustain the long-term, comprehensive process that is youth development.

We can support the move toward the ideal by:

- Seeking new types of information.

- Building on the after-school momentum.

- Making a sustainable public investment.

Youth development is an investment that must be made by each sector of the wider community – public and private. Examination of the federal-state matching, local dedicated taxes an incentives for business and philanthropy could lead to models for providing adequate and sustainable funding for youth development. National intermediaries must work to cultivate this leadership at all levels of government, and at the grassroots, by creating constituencies.

Several states are taking the lead from California, Oregon and Illinois by offering state-sponsored retirement plans that encourage or require private sector employers to participate.

The plans are referred to as auto-IRAs because eligible workers are automatically enrolled, generally within 30 days of employment. The default contribution rate is typically 3-5% of a paycheck and the employee can stop, restart or transfer plan assets depending on their needs. Referred to as “public-private partnerships” by the Pew Charitable Trust, there is no cost to the employer. Proceeds are managed by a private financial firm management for a pre-determined fee. The plans are subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) like other sponsored pension and benefit plans.

This article provides an overview of the states that currently offer savings programs, as well as those that plan to do so in the future.

OregonSaves

Oregon was one of the first states to implement a savings program for employees of small businesses who are not otherwise eligible for a workplace sponsored pension plan. Titled OregonSaves, it is a state retirement program that is available to an employer or an individual planning for the future.

OregonSaves had almost $57 million in assets as of mid-2020. Employee contributions averaged $127 to $135 per month as of that time.

Enrollment is automatic for employees, with contributions being made through payroll deductions. Each employee account is portable and can be moved from one job to another.

All Oregon employers, regardless of employee size, must facilitate the State’s program for their employees if they do not offer an employer-sponsored retirement plan. The plan is working with small employers to make the process as simple as possible.

CalSavers

CalSavers is available to California workers whose employers do not offer a workplace retirement plan, self-employed individuals, and others who want to increase their savings. Plan participants contribute to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) that belongs to them.

California employers with more than 50 employees must register with CalSavers by June 30, 2021 if they do not already sponsor a retirement plan. Registration is available to all California employers with at least five employees.

The CalSavers program opened statewide in July 2019 and had $4.3 million in assets as of mid-2020. On average, participating employees contribute $105 to $120 monthly. Like the Oregon plan, the default savings rate is 5% of the employee’s pay and employees are automatically enrolled after 30 days of employment. They can stop, restart or transfer plan participation at any time if they change employers.

CalSavers Retirement Savings Program is designed to simplify employer participation with no employer fees, no fiduciary responsibility, and minimal ongoing responsibilities. Employers that fail to offer participation in the plan as required are subject to fines.

In May 2021, a federal appeals court in San Francisco dismissed a legal challenge to the CalSavers plan.

Illinois Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program

Illinois launched its Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program in 2018. It is a state-facilitated retirement program that is open to employees who work for an eligible employer as well as other employees who want to enroll independent of their employer. Approximately 32,000 Illinois employees saved $8.5 million in the first year of the Illinois Secure Choice program, according to state reports.

The Illinois Secure Choice account is a Roth IRA for the employee. The default savings rate is 5% of gross pay. Employees are automatically enrolled through payroll contributions after 30 days of employment. An employee can opt out at any time. Plan participants are charged a fee of 0.75% of assets per year ($0.75 for every $100 saved), which pays for program administration and operating expenses.

The Illinois Secure Choice had 5,544 registered employers as of May 2020. There are no fees for employers to facilitate the program and employers cannot make contributions to their employee accounts. Employers serve a limited role as a facilitator. As of November, 2019, employers with 25 or more employees that have been in business for two years or more are required to participate in the program. Employers that already offer an employer-sponsored retirement plan are exempt from this legislation.

New Jersey Secure Choice Savings

The “New Jersey Secure Choice Savings Act,” was signed into law in March 2019, with a two-year time frame scheduled to take effect in March 2021.

The Act requires employers that have been in business for two years and have 25 or more employees to participate in a retirement savings program administered through automatic payroll deductions. Private sector employees of businesses of any size are able to participate in the retirement savings program. Smaller or newer employers could join voluntarily. Failure to comply will result in fines to the employer.

Employees will be automatically enrolled at the leve of a 3% paycheck contribution. The annual contribution maximum is $6,000 for those under 50 years old, and $7,000 for those 50 or older.

Connecticut Secure Choice Savings Plan

Connecticut employers with five or more employees must offer a retirement plan to employees, and private employers with four or fewer employees may choose to do so. Employees are auto-enrolled within 120 days of employment, and employees must be notified of their rights within 30 days. Employers are not permitted to make contributions to the program.

The Connecticut Retirement Security Authority, a quasi-public agency, was formed in 2016 to oversee the program. The state estimates that as many as 600,000 employees may benefit from the plan.